To begin at the beginning

Welcome, gentle reader, to my blog. I'm hoping it will be short, but entertaining!

A bit of background:

Last May I found myself at a small local music festival with some good friends and my dog, single and without prospect of become not so. I split with my husband and baby-daddy in 2015 after 20 years together, and my long-term partner from the US had had to go home after staying with me for 6 months the previous October. I work with women, and I socialise with women, and all the eligible chaps my age just seemed like walking heart attacks waiting to happen. What was a fairly attractive, alternative-looking, solvent, independent woman-of-a-certain-age to do? Go on Tinder!

So I prepared a short biog, and logged on.

'Disreputable mother of one human, one dog and three cats (but no dragons) looking for a man for company and occasional heavy lifting! Politically left-wing, I love dancing, yoga, reading, films, theatre, cooking, walking, rock music, bikes, animals, my camper van, and good conversation, not necessarily in that order. Pretty self-sufficient with a full life, but willing to find space for the right guy.'

I didn't have to wait long.

After a few false starts chatting awkwardly to a couple of guys, a chap turned up who seemed just that little bit more intriguing. He said he was 53, lived in Oswestry, liked music and the arts, was not unattractive, certainly slim and fit, and had a very big motorbike. OK, so it was the motorbike that swung it! We met for coffee, then for dinner, then went to the theatre, then we stayed in...and by the time he admitted that he was actually 10 years older than he originally said, I was pretty well smitten. And so was he. It shouldn't have worked, but it did. We had 6 months of laughter, culture, bike rides, rock concerts and some frankly amazing sex before just after Christmas Real Life (tm) came crashing in and I had to give him up for the sake of a 2-year-old granddaughter called Lillie. We're still very much in touch, and that door is still open, *but* he always maintained I would have no trouble getting a date, and I had come to realise that I quite like having a man in my life, you know, for sex and heavy lifting, so last week back on Tinder I went.